Saturday, May 21, 2011

Enter The Dragon - Bruce Lee (1973) - Ching Chun Koon, Tuen Mun

Blink and you'll miss it, but the very opening shot of the film shows a very famous local temple called Ching Chun Koon. In the film it is used (the first of three separate locations) to represent the Shaolin Monastery where Lee's character is some sort of top kung fu disciple. In reality it's a temple and columbarium (an ash storage and worship facility) of the HK religious type (sort of a mix of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism with elements of superstitious folk religion thrown in for good measure). The image we see on the film is of the main temple ceremonial gateway (a pai lau in local parlance) and the main temple building behind.


However, in the intervening years a few more buildings and roads have been created making this same angle almost impossible to attain. The lower front part of the roof of the main temple has also been extended and if you look carefully in the snaps below you will see what I mean (incidentally, I also heard the main roof was widened, but this could just be a misinterpretation of the bit I have just mentioned). These are my best efforts that sadly didn't make it into my Time Out Hong Kong article of various locations from the film due to a lack of space.
 

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